Disney Visa Card Questions

[sleepydog25]

Not sure this is the right board for this line of questioning, but does anyone care to provide their thoughts about the Disney Visa card offer? I certainly don't need another credit card, but I like the idea of using the reward points toward tickets, gifts, etc. I'm not enamored of the nearly 12% finance charge, though I almost always pay off my cards' balances each month, thus making it a moot point to some extent. Further, if you transfer a balance from one card to this one, does that count as a reward purchase? Lastly, I had a card with BankOne a number of years ago and wasn't too thrilled with their customer service. Perhaps I'm looking for reasons NOT to get the Disney card! Any comments would be appreciated.

 

[HLAuburn]

We've only had our's for about a month, but so far so good. I hear you can't really count on any great deals thru the card, but we charge our everyday purchases and pay them off each month, so at least we're getting 1% towards Disney Dollars. It's not much, but we had already accumulated so many airline miles with our other card, we figured we might as well earn some points towards our Dsney trip.
Maybe we'll luck out and get some great offer . I have to say I'm kinda split on the whole issue.

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

We've been card members since "Day 1" and my feelings about the card are mixed. I have yet to take advantage of any special offers that they have. They haven't had any room-only deals, all of them have been for packages. The rewards are okay but you can get 1% back on just about any card (Discover, AmEx, various rebate cards).

The nice things are that there is no annual fee, unlike some airline FF cards. 12% is not a terribly high rate when you consider that some cards charge 19% and more. If you pay it off every month, APR is not that big of a consideration.

If you transfer a balance to this card, you will not get rewards dollars for the balance transfer. Furthermore, if you were to make any additional charges to the card, your payments on the existing balance would first be applied to the low APR of the transferred balances before the new charges. In effect, you would be paying the 12% interest on the new charges while you pay down the lower interest rate balance first.

Another thing to keep in mind is that they use 2-cycle billing to calculate interest. If you do carry a balance, you will pay interest on the month that the charge occurred and the month that you are billed. It's kind of confusing as to how it actually works but in effect, you pay more in interest if you have a card that uses this method and you carry any balance.

BankOne was recently purchased by Chase. If you have a Chase credit card and are happy with their customer service, then you most likely would be satisfied with the Disney Card.

 

[tbelfonti]

We pay off our Disney Visa monthly so I really don't care what the APR is since we don't pay any interest.

No great "Deals" per say, but I'm leaving for disney in 13 days and I've got $620 reward dollars to apply to my trip. Free money!

We use our card for EVERYTHING we can and it's definitely paid off for us.

 

[PURTYPAT1]

WOW tbelfonti how long did it take you to save the $620 reward dollars?

 

[tbelfonti]

We've had the card since "Day 1" so whenever that was - I normally put between $3K - $4K a month on it.

What I LOVE about this card vs another "rewards" or cash back card is that this money is all going toward my trip and can't be spent on anything else.

 

[LoriKutchey]

Just received an updated brochure in my disney visa bill. It lists some changes since Chase took over. Starting June 1st their is a change in the grace period. Here is how I read it, even though I pay my bill in FULL every month. Any purchases in the new cycle will have interest added until they receive my payment from the last cycle. So let's say my cycle ended on May lst and my payment (in full) does not get there until the 10th. All purchases from the first until the 10th will get charged interest. If anyone has received this update on Chase's charges and reads this differently. Let me know. I am quite unhappy with this!

 

[tbelfonti]

I just called Disney Visa about this.

As long as you pay your card off in full by the due date, you will not accrue interest.

 

[ckoncurat]

I'm a member since day one, and currently have a 9% interest rate. You can call ANY credit card and ask for a lower rate, and they will often give it to you. In addition to reward dollars I've used the following benifits:

1. Free tickets to the incredibles
2. Free tickets to the heffalump movie.
3. Free tickets to national treasure
4. Free tickets (an $160 value) to the Cinderella Show at World of Disney in New York for my DDs- and that was TOTALLY worth having the card.
5. I am planning on joining the Disney movie club using their Visa offer.
6. ALAMO discount code
7. Disney Direct free shipping code.

You just have to check your offers regulary and see what you get. No guarentee any of these will apply in the future. We had earned about $250 in reward dollars for our october trip, so we had a fun shopping spree for our girls at downtown disney on the last day. We have also bought 2 DVDs and a Mickey Croquet set with reward dollars. For me, disney reward dollars are more usable than frequent flyer miles or other types of rewards. I don't use other cards, and I pay off my balance regulary (but not always every month).

 

[Minnie's Mate]

We have been members since day 1, also. We put absolutely everything we possibly can on the Disney Visa and go online and do an online payment on the first and 15th of each month (my paydays) for whatever has been charged since the last payment. This way we keep it paid off and the payments are so hard to handle.

So far, we have made two trips to WDW since we started accruing Disney reward dollars and are about to make a third and with each trip we have used our Disney reward dollars to pay for part of each trip. With this trip, we will have accrued just under $1,000 total and paid no annual fee and no interest charges. So that's like Visa gifting us nearly $1,000 for free! For years we have tried the airline mileage cards or hotel reward points and never used any of the miles or points we accrued. Now, with the airlines in the financial shape they are in, I may never get a chance to use the miles and the hotel points zeroed out every year. At least with the Disney Visa, I have got something...and quite a lot at that.